Question for Posh Paul

I used to fish with a group of brothers from the East End many years ago; rough types but, the salt of the earth. One day on returning from a fishing trip we were all dying for a pint and the driver suddenly pulled into a posh hotel and said this will do. I must admit I had my doubts but, these guys were a bit of a law until themselves so, in we went; found the bar and ordered our pints. However, there was a posh bird sitting at the bar with her friend chatting away about god knows. No problem but, she was smoking a cigarette and kept flicking her ash behind her into an ash tray right next to my mate. She frequently kept doing this without looking and there was more ash on the bar than in the ash tray; you get the picture. Now my mate was good bloke but, he didn’t have a reputation for patience. I could see he was getting a bit agitated as he was sitting right next to the posh bird and his pint was surrounded by ash; the signs were ominous. Then the next bit of ash landed in his pint and I really started to worry, with justification. As quick as a flash he pulled out two or three handfuls of maggots from his pocket and filled up the ash tray to the brim so that some of them were spilling onto the bar. We were all mortified and struggled to keep our composure. After a minute she turned round to flick her next bit of ash into the ashtray. She screamed and fell off her stool and I learnt something that day, that posh birds have posh knickers but, not necessarily posh language. Just wondered if Posh Paul had any thoughts on this. By the way the manager appeared and threw us out. My enduring memory of this incident is my mate pleading with the manager on the steps of the hotel (without any irony) to let him back in so he could retrieve his maggots but, he lacked any sense of humour or sense of fair play and wouldn’t have it. What do you think?

As a point of interest I would like to know how many of you FMers out there carry maggots in your pocket - especially when going for a pint.

mine are carried in a bait box on my bait waiter

bait waiter is called Jenkins and also caterpult the maggot in for me

markg said:

I used to fish with a group of brothers from the East End many years ago

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I wasn't aware the Krays went fishing!

Hmmm ..odd one this because

a) Papa Posh was, how shall we say, acquainted with other members of the said family. Indeed those of us of Kentish upbringings will be aware than both the Krays and Richardsons had links with certain seaside towns of the said godly county.

b) Papa Posh's second wife, when they had their first ale house, got so fed up of the chaps and ladies at the bar flicking their ash on the floor rather than the receptacles provided for the tobacco product detritus..that she made them all move their stools a little further away from the bar whilst she moved all the ash trays onto the floor for their convenience. They soon got the message, visually and verbally...mind you my step mother ain't posh...she's from the East End!

Posh ladies only wear knickers when common folk are around, in case the view makes them feel even more inferior than they already are.

Had is in the wrong tense ,the brothers are no longer around but the rest of the families are

Indeed you are right..was only talking to Papa Posh about one of his fellow ex-landlords the other night

Not maggots in the pocket but!

The question about carrying maggots in your pocket reminded me of another character I used to sea fish with---
I had a mate once who was famous for his frugality or should I say he was “tight as a ducks ----”. He very rarely bought any bait but, would arrive on the pier and scour the decks for any bits of left over lugworm, pieces of fish etc which would swiftly disappear into various pockets of his fishing jacket. The problem was that he never changed this jacket, have it cleaned or indeed ever take it off; I swear he even slept in it. Of course it stank to high heaven and many a time I would observe some hapless day-tripper venture up to him to ask if he had caught any fish, only to get within 10 feet of him and suddenly swerve away with a strange look on their faces. Some brave souls did get further but, it was not often, in fact even the sea gulls veered away a bit sharpish when they came within range. The only creatures that could stay the course were the flies of which there was always a resident cloud in attendance.
One day he came running up to me in the high street to announce a regional TV Company had telephoned him to ask if they cold do a feature on him. They were doing a program on characters in the town and they wanted to interview an angler on the pier and he was a well known character and someone had recommended him as a good candidate and given them his mobile phone number. He was beside himself with delight as they were giving him £50 for the pleasure! The day came for this TV interview and I rushed home to watch it. Now, you would imagine he might have changed his coat especially as it was a very hot day but, you would be wrong. Suddenly he appeared with an interviewer, the flies, the coat and not a seagull in sight. The interviewer was a pretty young girl in a nice summer frock but, this was spoilt by the fact that she appeared to be trying to win a gurning competition and she was losing the battle against a swarm of flies. She held the microphone as far away as possible but, her arms were not long enough to escape this assault on her senses so, she just sort of spat her words out and got on with it; poor girl. She was welcome to my bit of the TV licence fee as far as I was concerned. The next day he came on the pier and we all decided to ignore him because he was now a “film star” and we kept this up for four weeks. However, let me tell you he was a good fishing buddy. We would meet every Tuesday in a poshish restaurant for a cup of tea to arrange a coarse fishing trip for the following day. We always had a table to ourselves as we did a compartment on the train the next day. Plus we always had a swim to ourselves at the commercial fishery we usually went to. Occasionally an angler would occupy a swim next to us but, they usually vacated it within 30 minutes and more often than not before they finished tackling up so, a good bloke to fish with.

Sounds like a friend of mine . He used to wear a jacket like that and also a really smelly pipe Tobacco when he needed to go a pick up outstanding cheques from clients . His success rate was amazing ,mind you this was in the seventies when you could smoke in receptions in office blocks